The Watch (Terry Pratchett) [BBC America]

Blackhorse Slim

pixelburp wrote: »

It looks like exactly the kind of shovelware Pratchett himself worried about were his world put in the hands of American producers who just "didn't get it".

This is exactly 100% correct.

davetherave

That bears no resemblance to the images put in my head from the books. Very disappointing.

Vimes is a discount Jack Sparrow,.

Veteneri is now female because it is 2020 and you are not allowed to have a man in charge.

Carrot does not look like he could raise army with one raise of his arm.

Cheery looks to be taller than Carrot.

Detritus does look to be a troll so full marks for that.

I skimmed through the video of the panel and I think it summed up the series when the one of the producers said right at the start, its hard to make an 8 part series, so we made a pick and mix of the night watch books and then made our own version...

Why make an 8 part series if the source doesn't work that way... Just make however many episodes it takes to do the source justice or don't do it at all.

ilovesmybrick

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/12/bbc-the-watch-shares-no-dna-with-terry-pratchett-work-daughter-rhianna

I was a bit dubious when I saw about all the changes to characters in the initial photos, but Richard Dormer looked right in the stills as Vimes to me (or at least a good adaptation) and I'd give it a shot. But from the trailer they seem to have thrown his character out the window completely, and that is unforgiveable to my mind. Vimes and his character development was one of my favourite part of the discworld series. He was disrespectful, flawed, and difficult. But he was never the complete d**k that he seems to be portrayed as here. In fact that was one of his core character traits, trying not to be a complete d**k. What a waste.

daheff

Have to say I'm very very disappointed on this. Having seen Good Omens, Going Postal and The Hogfather adaptions, this left me feeling a bit meh.

It's trying to be edgy, too woke (cheery/Lord Vetinari/Lady Sybil). Straying too far from the book.

The thing I liked about the other adaptions was that they were still light hearted and a little cheesy...this seems to be trying to be dark and woke(I hate that word btw). And it doesn't work.

I'll probably still watch the first episode....but I won't enjoy it

pixelburp

First the daughter, now the close friend and collaborator tutting. What a mess. Not exactly off to a great start.

Wokeness is not in of itself a crime, were the characters kept the same. Vetinari appears to still be as originally written. Wokeness can't be blamed for Vimes seemingly turned into TV Jack Sparrow (god would he have ever flipped Vetinari off? Book Sam would have had more self preservation FFS)

Said it before but there was no reason Sybil couldn't have been a large black creole / Carribbean woman if the race simply had to change. The boisterous, confident Carribbean woman still tracks with the boisterous landed gentry of the books. Nope, make her thin, young and hot.

It is ironic though that in the pursuit of diversity, the show has basically written out a fat middle-aged woman. Replaced with the classic "old man romances young hottie" mould, which ain't especially modern or progressive. Looks like genre TVs great middle age romance will remain Adama and Roslin

ilovesmybrick

pixelburp wrote: »

Looks like genre TVs great middle age romance will remain Adama and Roslin

Sci-fi nerds Ross and Rachel!

Sonics2k

pixelburp wrote: »

First the daughter, now the close friend and collaborator tutting. What a mess. Not exactly off to a great start.

Wokeness is not in of itself a crime, were the characters kept the same. Vetinari appears to still be as originally written. Wokeness can't be blamed for Vimes seemingly turned into TV Jack Sparrow (god would he have ever flipped Vetinari off? Book Sam would have had more self preservation FFS)

Said it before but there was no reason Sybil couldn't have been a large black creole / Carribbean woman if the race simply had to change. The boisterous, confident Carribbean woman still tracks with the boisterous landed gentry of the books. Nope, make her thin, young and hot.

It is ironic though that in the pursuit of diversity, the show has basically written out a fat middle-aged woman. Replaced with the classic "old man romances young hottie" mould, which ain't especially modern or progressive. Looks like genre TVs great middle age romance will remain Adama and Roslin

I will literally bet that when this flops, the show runner will totally blame institutional racism and sexism and other such nonsense as the excuse for it being a flop.

Nothing to do with it being poorly written, totally out of the existing universe and so on.

donegal_man

Interview with executive producers Simon Allen and Richard Stokes.

https://collider.com/the-watch-bbc-america-discworld-interview

Nody

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Trailer

Did someone mistake British to mean Six Pistols only? Because that was a travesty in adoption on every level and feels in part as someone tried to SciFi it all because gollies we can't do fantasy now can we...

pixelburp

You know, I'll be honest: divorced of the Discworld aspect, there's a manic energy to this that might have appealed. The jokes don't land for me, but that's the sort of thing that can get better as a season passes.

But as a Discworld adaptation? It truly looks like a load of shít. Everything messed with too much beyond the point of recognition. Christ it doesn't even look like Ankh-Morpork - looks like they filmed in Spain or somewhere less soggy & inherently Anglocentric. Still a hard pass from me, but here's the trailer anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px-ljMM_EeM

GreeBo

^ Oh lord.

Other than the names of the characters, I didnt see anything DiscWorld about that at all

They have clearly decided to "reboot" it to appeal to a new audience...not sure why.

odyssey06

GreeBo wrote: »

^ Oh lord.

Other than the names of the characters, I didnt see anything DiscWorld about that at all

They have clearly decided to "reboot" it to appeal to a new audience...not sure why.

I wonder if sometimes it comes down to a bit of arrogance in the writing department, if they are not genuine fans of the original work.
If you really appreciated the original work, you might make some changes for adapting to screen \ time constraints, but you would try to retain as much as possible.

A straight adaptation is too dull \ less opportunity for you to make your mark.
You do a re-imagining \ re-boot you put your stamp on it.

Zaph

Hasn't 2020 punished us enough already without adding this?

Bannasidhe

odyssey06 wrote: »

I wonder if sometimes it comes down to a bit of arrogance in the writing department, if they are not genuine fans of the original work.
If you really appreciated the original work, you might make some changes for adapting to screen \ time constraints, but you would try to retain as much as possible.

A straight adaptation is too dull \ less opportunity for you to make your mark.
You do a re-imagining \ re-boot you put your stamp on it.

Arrogance in changing the original so that it is unrecognisable.
Lack of imagination in being able to create your own original work.

They are simply using Pratchett to get the exposure - perhaps their 'vision' wouldn't get de green light without attaching his name to it.

Nody

GreeBo wrote: »

^ Oh lord.

Other than the names of the characters, I didnt see anything DiscWorld about that at all

They have clearly decided to "reboot" it to appeal to a new audience...not sure why.

It was not woke enough; no seriously that was their stated reason in an interview that they wanted to "modernize it". Hence instead of a older plump woman you get a young thin one, who's batgirl at night, to fall in love with an older dude. Gender questions about dwarfs? Nah, they are all clearly visible in gender and same size as Carrott. Cut my own throat Dribble becomes a pirate because pirates are cool!!1 instead of representing an 80s car sales person. Questions of racial hatred with dwarfs and trolls? Pfft, skip that stuff. It's such a butchery that it makes me weep as people will watch this and think this is what the series is about and not read the books because of it even though it's called "an alternative disc world" as the catch all excuse for any changes.

pixelburp

It's the irony of the whole enterprise: the original Sybil, as written, would have been a true inclusivity trailblazer - and commanded column inches for its body positivity message. Flipping the race would have been fine too, the character still works.

Look, leading ladies don't need to be thin, young 'uns, she can be a large, middle-aged ... Oh, no. Sorry, I'm just hearing from the writing room she's now batgirl.

Arse.

Bannasidhe

Nody wrote: »

It was not woke enough; no seriously that was their stated reason in an interview that they wanted to "modernize it". Hence instead of a older plump woman you get a young thin one, who's batgirl at night, to fall in love with an older dude. Gender questions about dwarfs? Nah, they are all clearly visible in gender and same size as Carrott. Cut my own throat Dribble becomes a pirate because pirates are cool!!1 instead of representing an 80s car sales person. Questions of racial hatred with dwarfs and trolls? Pfft, skip that stuff. It's such a butchery that it makes me weep as people will watch this and think this is what the series is about and not read the books because of it even though it's called "an alternative disc world" as the catch all excuse for any changes.

There aren't enough :rolleyes: in the world to describe how absolutely same-old same-old their version is and how wonderfully, subtle, subversive the original is

GreeBo

Bannasidhe wrote: »

There aren't enough :rolleyes: in the world to describe how absolutely same-old same-old their version is and how wonderfully, subtle, subversive the original is

Thats the ridiculous thing alright.
They decided to make it different and now its the same as everything else.:mad:

Burgo

Looks like this has been released, I'm too fragile to watch it right now. Any brave souls taken the plunge?

pixelburp

As morbidly curious as I am, there's more than enough good TV out there without wasting time on something I know I'm going to hate. Star Trek Discovery already occupies my headspace marked "I'm not sure I enjoy this but..."

Vestiapx

First watch member mentioned in The Disc was Colon in Colour of Magic, I think he was busy not stopping a fight in the Drum. In Guards Guards ! He is joined firstly by Nobbs and then Vines and finally Carrot.

I've looked and it seems Colon and Nobbs are not listed as characters.

Whoever sold the rights should had ensured that the source materials are followed sufficiently and failed. Hopefully this dosen't mean that we have lost the Watch and basically Ankh to some sort of Spiderman Sony hell.

Good Omens was helped by Gaiman being hands on and having experience from multiple adaptations on Neverwhere and big budget in American Gods, not to mention his understanding of rights as a collaborator over the years.

The first episode is now available I'll probably watch it but it looks like they wanted the Umbrella Academy but were forced to take Terry.

Sonics2k

I watched it.

I hoped that it wouldn't be as bad as it seemed to be from the trailers and all the information seen previously. It's badly edited (shoddy lighting and visible set items), the character changes are awful and pointless, CGI is just awful. They added tech to it, and a bunch more stuff.

This is a shambles and Terry would be distraught about this.

CastorTroy

I never read the books so curious how non book readers will find it. Might check it out later

pixelburp

So, did anyone actually sit through the whole series in the end? I see there were only 8 episodes and looking at the synopsis, it mixed Guards Guards with modern elements of Night Watch.

JohnK

I only just about got through the first episode before giving up in disgust

Mickeroo

Where is it available? I might throw on the first episode out of morbid curiosity some evening.

Sonics2k

pixelburp wrote: »

So, did anyone actually sit through the whole series in the end? I see there were only 8 episodes and looking at the synopsis, it mixed Guards Guards with modern elements of Night Watch.

Struggled through 4 or 5 episodes. And I really mean struggled. It was a burden, very little about it enjoy and the changes have utterly warped the Discworld. Even people I know who knew nothing of the original story thoroughly disliked this show.

pixelburp

Sonics2k wrote: »

Struggled through 4 or 5 episodes. And I really mean struggled. It was a burden, very little about it enjoy and the changes have utterly warped the Discworld. Even people I know who knew nothing of the original story thoroughly disliked this show.

Man that's such a shame. Had wondered if perhaps there were growing pains and it was at least enjoyable if one just tried really hard to ignore the "Discworld" setting.

CoVid has dried up new TV so drastically I was actually contemplating checking this out. Now that's desperation Googled and there wasn't a lot of chatter either so I wonder if this will get a quiet heave-ho at the BBC.

GLaDOS

Are there any Pratchett TV/Film adaptions worth watching? As an ardent Discworld fan I've shied away from them as I struggle to see how Terry's writing could properly translate to the screen.

The trailer posted earlier makes me sick.

ilovesmybrick

The only one I liked was Going Postal, it's been a few years since I watched it, but as far as I remember it was good fun.